Denton made it to the end. He gave her a quick salute before disappearing into the outer ring of the OSS base. She wanted to pursue him, but there was Czarina.
‘Hey!’ DC called out from the room above.
He was still alive. That was a good sign.
‘Get out of there!’ he yelled.
Sophia turned to see Czarina’s elbows slip. She disappeared from view. Sophia could see fingers clinging underneath. The water pulled on Czarina. She had only moments before she’d lose her hold completely.
Sophia looked up. DC had gone. He was the only one who could operate any of the Blue Beret firearms. Maybe he’d catch up to Denton and take him down.
Sophia dropped the sword on the catwalk and ran to Czarina. She slid across the end, her slide spraying water into her own face. She reached into the rushing water and grabbed Czarina’s wrist.
Sophia braced herself with the tips of her boots clamping each side of the catwalk. She hauled Czarina up. Her wrist surfaced. Sophia brought her other hand across, pulled Czarina with both hands. Every muscle in her arms, shoulders and back burned to get the operative to the surface.
Czarina gasped for air, held onto Sophia. The catwalk buckled and Sophia plunged a foot deeper into the water. She heard her sword slide down the footbridge, coming to rest beside her leg. She ignored it and pulled Czarina up by her red jacket and onto the catwalk. Czarina clawed across the metal, rolled out of the buckled section and onto higher ground. She coughed water.
Sophia took her sword and rolled away. Czarina propped up on her elbows, strips of long brown hair smeared across her face. She coughed more water and stared evenly at Sophia.
For a moment they just stared at each other. Sophia wondered what to do next. Leave her. Kill her. Wound her. Capture her. Deprogram her.
There wasn’t much time for any except the first. But she’d gone to the trouble of rescuing her, leaving her seemed senseless — and careless if Czarina tracked her and killed her while she was trying to escape.
‘Why did you do that?’ Czarina said between breaths.
Sophia could sense lingering aggression. It pushed out toward her in waves. Czarina was not her friend. The pheromones or whatever DC called them, they were warning signals. And she was getting them loud and clear.
She did the only thing she could do.
‘Children three that nestle near, eager eye and willing ear,’ Sophia said. ‘Pleased a simple tale to hear.’
Czarina twitched.
Sophia reached for her sword. ‘Children three that—’
‘Access permitted,’ Czarina said suddenly.
Sophia swallowed. ‘Execute parapsyche designation Lycaon,’ she said.
‘Lycaon loaded,’ Czarina said. Goosebumps crept across Sophia’s neck. ‘Request command.’
The waves of aggression dropped off. Now there were no warning signs at all. Sophia didn’t know if this was a good thing or whether it was worse. She rose to her feet. ‘Follow me,’ she said.
‘Command received,’ Czarina said, mirroring her movements.
‘I’m your ally,’ Sophia said. ‘Echo status.’
Czarina stared at her with mild curiosity. ‘You are my ally.’
‘DC is your ally,’ Sophia said. ‘Denton and all Blue Berets are hostile.’
‘Copy that,’ Czarina said. She didn’t move.
Water lapped at Czarina’s ankles.
‘Where is your firearm?’ Sophia said.
‘I lost my pistol in the water,’ Czarina said instantly.
Sophia turned and started moving quickly across the catwalk. ‘Get us out of here,’ she said.
Czarina skipped over the buckled section and followed Sophia. They moved inside a stable room. It wouldn’t be stable for long — it was already inch-deep in dirty water. Czarina moved past Sophia and increased her speed. She gave no expression, no sign of struggle or confusion. She just moved at the speed necessary to escape the flooding base.
Sophia held onto the sword. She didn’t know how binding her commands were to an operative in slave mode. In fact, she hardly knew anything about slave mode. Leoncjusz died before he could tell her.
This was a bad idea.
Czarina moved from room to room — each as dark and barren as the last, some empty, others cluttered with moldy furniture and large CRT monitors from the eighties — yellowed and speckled in mold.
Czarina found the stairs and started up them quickly. Sophia heard the roar of water behind them. She turned to see a wall of water punch through the doorway behind her. She broke into a sprint, catching up to Czarina on the second floor. Sophia hit the stairs at full speed. Water hit the stairs, the walls, kicked up and sprayed across her face.
Sophia still gripped her sword tightly. She was wet and cold, as saturated as Czarina. She probably looked nightmarish with the smeared sugar-skull makeup across her face. Czarina, on the other hand, appeared somewhat more in control. Her hair didn’t interfere with her vision and even her cherry-red lipstick refused to smear across chestnut skin.
Sophia noticed two dead Blue Berets on this level. Czarina continued up to the third level, retrieving a carbine from a Blue Beret. Sophia noticed the other Blue Beret was already relieved of his carbine. She hoped it was DC who’d liberated it and not Denton.
Sophia didn’t bother going for the Berets’ pistols, but then she remembered her Glock. She padded around the vest pockets of the first Blue Beret, found nothing. She checked the second Blue Beret and found a magazine. Her Glock magazine. She held it in one hand and searched the pouches on his belt. She had to roll him over. Water washed over her hands. It was rising fast.
Czarina paused on the next flight of stairs and looked down. She seemed to show no interest in turning the carbine against her new master. Sophia felt uncomfortable with a slave-mode operative carrying a carbine but let her for now. It was no use in her hands.
Czarina didn’t say anything, just watched. Sophia didn’t want to test how long before Czarina warned her — or if she ever would. Sophia felt the pouch on the back of his belt. It was barely closed and she ran her fingers across a pistol-shaped bulge. She opened it and found her Glock.
There you are.
She loaded the magazine as she ran, racked the slide, moved up the stairs. The water flushed in behind her.
Czarina’s knowledge of the base was useful. They changed stairs and moved across the complex, through a smaller interior courtyard and two more corridors before moving up another two flights of stairs. From there, Czarina twisted them through the edge of the base and out through the concrete foyer. Before they reached the sub-basement, Sophia stopped.
‘Is there another way out?’ Sophia said. ‘They’ll ambush us.’
Czarina nodded and picked out another tunnel. It took them into a disused subway tunnel.
Czarina checked both ends of the tunnel and then dropped to one knee. She stared carefully over the holographic sight on her carbine. Sophia moved near her and took a moment to slow her heart rate, careful not to lay the blade of her sword across the third rail and electrocute herself.
‘Your command,’ the operative said coldly.
‘Right.’ Sophia cleared her throat. ‘Take us to Grand Central through another tunnel; avoid being seen,’ she said. ‘Only engage if we have to,’ she added, mostly to herself.
‘Copy that.’ Czarina launched to both feet and started moving quickly, carbine half raised.
Sophia had her Glock and four magazines, minus two rounds she’d fired in the elevator at those Roman soldiers. She had sixty-six rounds. She loaded her spare three mags from her ruck into the pouches along the left side of her belt.
A pistol wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing. She took comfort in Czarina wielding her SOPMOD carbine, even if she was in slave mode.